Friday, October 7, 2011

Short Takes: Evidence Against Currency Hedging, Gold Vending Machines, and more

Preet Banerjee says that there are vending machines that dispense gold popping up in the U.S., Europe, and China. I guess this is convenient if you need gold quickly when you don’t get enough notice before the financial world collapses and you think that people would still trade food for your gold.

Canadian Couch Potato finds that the consensus view of institutional money managers is all over the map. This makes sense. If they all had a common view, their actions would move the market until enough of them had different views to stabilize the market.

Big Cajun Man brings us a video of comedian Louis CK’s take on bank fees.

Larry MacDonald reports that house prices keep rising despite claims by some that we’re in a housing bubble.

The Blunt Bean Counter thinks that when it comes to capital gains, you shouldn’t let the tax tail wag the investing dog.

Money Smarts has an update of a stock-picking contest. The results look pretty dismal so far.